Das Ohr und wir

Alle Alle

February 2007 •German

Ina, just released from prison, returns to the place of her childhood in search of life and meets the occasional desperado Domühl in her mother's house, which has been empty for thirty years. Hagen, a mentally handicapped resident, also ends up in this unusual landscape somewhere in the middle of nowhere south of Berlin in search of his uncle.

Ich will da sein - Jenny Gröllmann

June 2008 •German

The film accompanies Jenny Gröllmann, a German actress, during the last two years of her life.

Die Luftbrücke

May 2008 •German

Klassenleben

May 2006 •German

For some time now, there have been schools in Germany whose aim is not to segregate any child. Everyone should be integrated with their minor or major handicaps, advantages or weaknesses, whether highly gifted or severely disabled. Klassenleben tells the story of such a school, its teachers, its children and the immense challenge of learning. From winter to summer 2004, Hubertus Siegert and his film team accompanied class 5d at the Fläming elementary school in Berlin. At eye level with its protagonists, the film observes the learning and life of pupils with extremely different abilities in a class of 20 children, four of whom have learning difficulties or severe multiple disabilities, and 16 "normal pupils", including some so-called gifted pupils. Do lessons succeed in such a heterogeneous group? Is everyone motivated to learn where the competition is not between "gifted" children?

Otto; or, Up with Dead People

January 2008 •English

A young zombie named Otto appears on a remote highway. He has no idea where he came from or where he is going. After hitching a ride to Berlin and nesting in an abandoned amusement park, he begins to explore the city. Soon he is discovered by underground filmmaker Medea Yarn, who begins to make a documentary about him with the support of her girlfriend, Hella Bent, and her brother Adolf, who operates the camera. Meanwhile, Medea is still trying to finish Up with Dead People, the epic political-porno-zombie movie that she has been working on for years. She convinces its star, Fritz Fritze, to allow the vulnerable Otto to stay in his guest bedroom. When Otto discovers that he has a wallet that contains information about his past, before he was dead, he begins to remember details about his ex-boyfriend, Rudolf. He arranges to meet him at the schoolyard where they met, with devastating results.

Next Door

July 2021 •German

Berlin, the Prenzlauer Berg district. Daniel is a movie star accustomed to success. His loft apartment is stylish and so is his wife, and the nanny has the children under control. Everything is tip-top, bilingual and ready for him to jet off to an audition in London where a role in an American superhero film awaits the celebrated German-Spanish actor. Popping into the local bar on the corner, he finds Bruno sitting there. As transpires by the minute, Bruno has been waiting for this moment for a long time. And so this eternally overlooked man – one of reunification's losers and a victim of the gentrification of what was once East Berlin – takes his revenge. With Daniel as his target...

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

July 1943 •English

General Candy, who's overseeing an English squad in 1943, is a veteran leader who doesn't have the respect of the men he's training and is considered out-of-touch with what's needed to win the war. But it wasn't always this way. Flashing back to his early career in the Boer War and World War I, we see a dashing young officer whose life has been shaped by three different women, and by a lasting friendship with a German soldier.

Emil and the Detectives

December 1931 •German

When a suspicious man bribes Emil with chocolate in return for a bundle of cash, the young lad thinks of a plan to catch him.

Emil and the Detectives

February 1935 •English

Erich Kästner’s beloved novel has been adapted for film or television six times since its publication in 1929; this 1935 British version was the first in English. Believed lost for decades, it was recently rediscovered by the BFI and has now been restored. The film moves the action from Berlin to London, where Emil goes to stay with his grandmother and cousin. Thereafter, the tale of Emil’s adventures with a gang of streetwise London children faithfully follows the original plot.

Emil and the Detectives

December 1964 •English

When Emil travels by bus to Berlin to visit his family, his money is stolen by a crook who specializes in digging tunnels. While following the thief, Emil runs into Gustav, a young boy who gathers up all his friends to help Emil find the money. However, they get into more trouble than they bargained for when Emil's pickpocket turns out to be mixed up with a couple of notorious bank robbers.

Mama Mia - Nur keine Panik

December 1984 •German

Because her husband, crime novel author Bert, prefers to spend the evenings with milieu and girl studies in the pubs, Conny files for divorce and moves with the two children from Berlin to Munich. There, she mistakes the new teacher of her daughter with the renovating carpenter, which is quite alright with the teacher as this gives him plenty of opportunity to enjoy Conny’s company. Meanwhile, however, Bert as well has started to understand how good it is to have a cosy home. He comes to Munich in order to win Conny back.

My Führer

January 2007 •German

Hitler no longer believes in himself, and can barely see himself as an equal to even his sheep dog. But to seize the helm of the war he would have to create one of his famous fiery speeches to mobilize the masses. Goebbels therefore brings a Jewish acting teacher Grünbaum and his family from the camps in order to train the leader in rhetoric. Grünbaum is torn, but starts Hitler in his therapy ...

Niete zieht Hauptgewinn

December 2007 •German

Marie Gruber fights tooth and claw to keep her café open. And yet she should be facing her "arch-enemy" with pure hostility. But she unwittingly falls in love with the real estate speculator who wants to take the café away from her. When the two confess their love for each other, the trouble really begins...

Feuerland

January 1988 •German

Volker Koepp documents life in the Dorotheenstadt in Berlin-Mitte, which was called "Feuerland" in the 19th century.

Trip to Asia: The Quest for Harmony

February 2008 •German

Journey with the musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic and their conductor Sir Simon Rattle on a breakneck concert tour of six metropolises across Asia: Beijing, Seoul, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei and Tokyo. Their artistic triumph onstage belies a dynamic and dramatic life backstage. The orchestra is a closed society that observes its own laws and traditions, and in the words of one of its musicians is, “an island, a democratic microcosm – almost without precedent in the music world - whose social structure and cohesion is not only founded on a common love for music but also informed by competition, compulsion and the pressure to perform to a high pitch of excellence... .” Never before has the Berlin Philharmonic allowed such intimate and exclusive access into its private world.

Der Eiserne Gustav

December 1958 •German

Quiet as a Mouse

January 2004 •German

A pseudo documentary study of an archetypal German who tries to model his world according to his ideas of law and (sexual) order.

Leroy räumt auf

November 2005 •English

Leroy is an Afro-German boy who is struggling with notorious bad luck and a national identity crisis. Leroy is cultured and well-mannered and, in a positive sense, more German than many Germans. His girlfriend Eva's brothers are skinheads and befriend him. Together with his best friend Dimmi, a Greek, he strolls through crowded and dirty Berlin to the sound of 70s soul grooves and ponders all the sore points of being German. And then he comes up with the idea of how to defeat fascism....

Leroy

September 2007 •German

A gently humorous look at otherness and xenophobia in modern day German with this tale of a black Berlin teen named Leroy who rediscovers his roots after falling for a pretty white girl and meeting her racist family.

The Pride of the Firm

April 1914 •German

Der Stolz der Firma, meaning The Pride of the Business, is a classic German silent film from 1914. The film tells the story of a shrewd apprentice and is filmed in the comical style of director Lubitsch. This is one of the few Lubitsch films from World War I that wasn’t lost.